President Obama on April 26 signed the legislation sponsored by Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) to ensure the Administration’s new health care reform law would not adversely affect Tricare. Both the House and Senate passed the Tricare Affirmation Act (HR 4887) unanimously. In an April 26 statement, Skelton said that the Tricare and non-appropriated fund (NAF) “health plans are such great plans that they already meet the minimum requirements for individual health insurance coverage in the recently enacted health care bill, and no Tricare or NAF health plan beneficiary will be required to purchase additional coverage beyond what they already have.”
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.